The
Michigan Wolverines are set to hire
Don “Wink” Martindale as the team’s defensive coordinator under first-year head coach
Sherrone Moore. The move checks off both boxes as an experienced, respected voice from the Harbaugh coaching tree and an approach that mirrors the Baltimore Ravens-style scheme that the Wolverines have run the past few years.
Martindale’s availability came as a surprise after parting ways with the Giants after the 2023 season after two years with the organization, foregoing $3 million on compensation to pursue another opportunity. It was the result of a falling out with New York head coach Brian Daboll and a situation that was reportedly no longer tenable.
Before that, he spent the 2012-21 seasons with John Harbaugh and the Baltimore Ravens and ran the team’s defense from 2018-21, winning a Super Bowl over Jim Harbaugh and the San Francisco 49ers in 2012, among other stops along the way. Martindale has not coached at the college level since he was at Western Kentucky with Jack Harbaugh in 2000-03. There, he was his defensive coordinator and inside linebackers coach.
We spoke to
Dan Schneier, co-host of the Big Blue View podcast and CBS Sports to get the background on what went down with the Giants and what Martindale brings philosophically to Michigan.
“Daboll wanted to have some control over what Wink was doing on defense,” Schneier told The Wolverine. “Wink came in with the idea that it would run similarly to how it ran for him in Baltimore where John Harbaugh is more of just the overseer and he lets him run his defense how he wants to run his defense. From that standpoint, I believe Daboll is somewhat at fault because he tried to get involved here and to be quite frank, he’s an offensive-minded coach. I’d rather he just let Wink do what he wants to do on the defensive side of the ball.
“Part of it started to boil over during the second Dallas game. The Giants were blitzing a lot in the first half and went down 28-0 and reportedly that’s when they started to get after it, because Daboll wanted him to stop blitzing, and he didn’t.
“The breaking point was at the end of the season, the Giants weren’t getting production out of their edge guys, so they brought Wink in and said they were gonna let go of Drew Wilkins, the outside linebacker coach. Wink stormed out of the building reportedly, and then there was 24 24-hour period where they didn’t know what was going on and if he had resigned or not. Then, they agreed to mutually part ways.”
Despite the way Martindale’s time with the Giants ended, Schneier thinks that what he does will work at Michigan and is in line with the system that Mike Macdonald and Jesse Minter ran the last few years. Given that he is one of the architects of the system, that should not be a surprise. However, it does come with some alterations.
“Wink is going to be a great fit for Michigan for multiple reasons,” Schneier said. “It’s going to be somewhat similar to what they have had in the past, but also because I think his style of defense works better against college-level quarterbacks than NFL-level quarterbacks. Wink’s worst games, when they transpire, are all against those fast-processing quarterbacks. The ones who can get the information in their head fast, get the ball out fast, throw it into space, and get it to the right spot. Because he’s blitzing a lot, and he’s throwing a lot of simulated pressures too and playing a lot of man, and playing a lot of single high safety. Though he was playing more Cover 3 this year than usual because of injuries and stuff.
“But he wants to blitz it and get after it. And the quarterbacks that were smart and fast-processing were some of the guys who killed him [like Dak Prescott]. He’s just good at getting the ball out and knowing where to go with it. But at the college level, you just don’t see that as much from these quarterbacks. You maybe get one a year, who I would consider a fast-processing quarterback. But the one thing he had trouble with was those types of quarterbacks.
“His defense is best in the red zone and on third downs, but he will give up yardage, and there will be some plays that are just big plays if you face the right quarterback and the right receiver. He gets aggressive at times, and it hurts him, but it typically only tends to be against the good passing offenses.”
Given that Martindale is 60 years old and has spent two decades in the NFL, some might think that he will bring a stubborn, meat-and-potatoes attitude to Michigan’s defense. Schneier says that is one of the biggest myths out there as it pertains to his personality and style.
“The biggest misconception with Wink would be that he’s not willing to adapt,” Schneier said. “Of all the coordinators the Giants have had over the recent years, he’s the most that I’ve seen who’s willing to adjust his game plan for each specific game based on the opponent.
“Last season, they played the Jaguars [on Oct. 23] and up until that point all year long had run with a ton of simulated pressure and a ton of blitzing. For a large portion of the game, they dropped eight players and rushed three against Trevor Lawrence, and it totally messed with him. At that point, there were six, seven games of film that the Jaguars had to work with, and Wink had never done anything close to that, and so he felt like, ‘I’ll put this in, and it’ll be a curveball, and let’s see what happens.’
“Another thing he likes to do if he’s facing a real, true number one threat [at wide receiver], he’ll allocate a lot of resources and change the game plan specifically around to stop that player. He did this against Justin Jefferson with the Minnesota Vikings in the playoff game in 2022 (7 catches, 47 yards), and then he did it this year against [Buffalo Bills wideout] Stefon Diggs (10 catches, 100 yards). The cool thing about Wink is that the game plans were specific to the opponent. And I’ve seen a lot of coordinators over the years who would just run a system and that’s it. And it’s not changing week to week.”
For Michigan, the biggest benefit might be having a de facto head coach on the defensive side of the ball with Moore focused on the offense. That was the dynamic Martindale thought he had signed up for with the Giants, and is the one it appears he could get in Ann Arbor.
“The players all loved Wink,” Schneier said. “For the most part, the players have seemed to just straight-up love playing for him. He’s definitely a player’s coach, It’s just a matter of whether will he get along with the first-year coach since he’s an offensive minded coach
“I would tend to believe this is the right fit for him because it’s a guy who might be more willing to defer to Wink, given his experience and the fact that he’s probably new to just the entire idea of head coaching. You can never know that until you see it play out.”
still waiting.